New tank. Ret in disguise. I have this dangerous ability called HotR. Makes me feel like I'm all cool.

Then a decent DPS will come along, and rip fairly handily. I understand a lot of these trash pulls aren't 'designed' to just be AOE tanked but that's how we've always done it. No one dies, I just find myself throwing taunts on cooldown because once I lose threat on one mob it tends to go downhill from there.

Am I supposed to be tabbing though and threatting? I try to use INQ but I find myself using WOG a lot because pug healers sometimes struggle with all the melee gimmicks. Is there a useful tool (besides Tidyplates, though I'm not sure if I have it configured correctly) that will make aggro a little more visual before a rip?

I mean just looking for general advice. It's a fundamental flaw of mine I'd let to get under wraps because the DPS in my guild are pretty bad ass. I've read all the theorycrafting on threatting, just can't find any decent overview of AOE tanking.

In the brave new world of Cata, it's become part of each player's job to make sure they're helping everyone else do theirs too. Tanks self-heal and use our CDs to help the healers and so forth.

DPS needs to make sure they're helping the tank too. If they're ONLY interested in seeing big pretty numbers scroll up their screen, or making sure their name has a big phat #1 next to it on the damage meters, then that DPS is made of fail.

For their part:- They need to make sure they're on the mob you're targeting.- They have CDs to dump aggro. They need to use them.- If they have a damage meter, then they damn well can get a Threat meter too, and watch it.

For your part:- HotR, HW, Cons are your AoE friends. If you haven't glyphed AS to be single target, then it too is a good call. - AoE is dependent upon the mobs being in the A to get hit by the E. LOS and other positioning skills need to be used to make sure everything is rounded up before you use expensive mana burners like Cons. RD can help make sure this happens too.- Don't get cocky kid ... if you've got CC in the party, make full use of it.

I suppose I should elaborate. I always unglyph AS for heroics. I also realize I'm not using the highest threat build for heroics too, I primarily tank to a) Queue into a heroic quickly and b) my guild needs me to right now.

That being said, you're absolutely right about those circumstances, and DPS not herpderping but I suppose I should have specified that I'm willing to pull my hair out to hold aggro under these conditions.

The key might not necessarily be me being a bad AOE tank rather than just not being a super duper one. Maybe I'll just say something in part like "gimme a sec." lol

I'll take a stab at this, though I can't see your armory atm. I will agree with the above comments, though with the "meteor" effect, HW is not as good as other AoE moves, unless the (glyphed) stun is in play. Having said this, I'm not implying that you should leave it out of your rotation, but a GC proc or consecrate will be a better choice in most cases. IMHO, HotR and AS/Grand Crusader are the best way to pick up and hold mobs in an aoe pull. I find that I can be effective in those situations by tabbing around with HotR, and using judge and AS on CD, while holding a sammich in the other hand. Its important to keep in mind that HotR is very directional, and so I treat it as almost a shockwave/cone effect, so that it hits as many mobs as possible.

Edit: I would also say that I roll with SoT for trash packs. SoI generally makes it a bit too easy for good dps to rip.

In some ways building on Brotectors comments, Dps help out the group by CCing mobs. If you find yourself using WoG to help out healers good on you, but if you are doing this every time you have 3 holy power I suspect there isn't a huge amount of CC going on.

I try to limit myself to a maximum of 3 mobs wailing on my head at any time, and I try to stun at least one of those to limit incoming damage. I think the limiting of incoming damage through CDs, stunning (remember holy wrath is awesome) and silences will help out your healer a lot without limiting your tps too much.

If cc is going down, Dps should be focusing down a skull, make sure you use a macro to mark this as quickly as possible, as the quicker that is dead the less healing your healer will be having to do. Meaning you can save your holy power for threat uses.

I get the same thing bro. Decent DPS rips aggro off me all the time. Get used to it, that is what your taunts are for. If we didn't have to react to people pulling aggro when AOE tanking then where would the challenge be? Remember this isn't WotLK.

I've found the key to good AoE tanking is Marking targets. Some classes just don't have good AoE or a sustained AoE rotation so they do some AoE and some Single Target DPS.

What is happening is that these single targeters will attack something at random if you don't give them a mark, if you have 3 in a group you can be pretty sure that each of them is going to target a different mob. At that point you spend most of your time running them down, taunting them back onto yourself and you'll generally lose control of the fight.

In an AoE Pack I will usually put up a Skull mark, that will be my primary target I build extra threat on it so people can single target attack it. I also put up an X to note which target I'm going to switch to next after Skull dies. If an Unmarked one runs off and goes beat on a DPS while the Skull is still up then you have DPS that needs better training. Even without Inq I've found that HotR, Consecration and Holy Wrath will make mobs stick to you like glue against pure AoE powers.

Navan wrote:I've found the key to good AoE tanking is Marking targets. Some classes just don't have good AoE or a sustained AoE rotation so they do some AoE and some Single Target DPS.

What is happening is that these single targeters will attack something at random if you don't give them a mark, if you have 3 in a group you can be pretty sure that each of them is going to target a different mob. At that point you spend most of your time running them down, taunting them back onto yourself and you'll generally lose control of the fight.

In an AoE Pack I will usually put up a Skull mark, that will be my primary target I build extra threat on it so people can single target attack it. I also put up an X to note which target I'm going to switch to next after Skull dies. If an Unmarked one runs off and goes beat on a DPS while the Skull is still up then you have DPS that needs better training. Even without Inq I've found that HotR, Consecration and Holy Wrath will make mobs stick to you like glue against pure AoE powers.

This. Mark up Skull and Cross as primary and secondary targets. Ask dps to go easy on AoE abilities as long as Skull is up. Keep an eye on Omen and switch to the next target as soon as you think you have enough threat on the dps target.If you find yourself WoG-ing a lot, you might find some CC to be of use.A few more tips: HW is not as bad at the start of the fight so if you use it, use it very early. You will find the most incoming damage will come when all mobs are up, so you might want to chain some cooldowns and on-use trinkets at the start to help the healer out. Also useful are any short duration CC (HoJ, Charge, Kidney Shot) and silences/interrupts on casters. Ask your dps to use them.

Rune Weapon has defeated the hero of the Warmaul, Mogor! All hail Rune Weapon!

I also agree on marks. Giving the DPS a skull and an X will cause most of them to attack those first while your AoE abilities build threat on everythig else. If you are losing skull at the beginning of the fight, then use your wings on the pull for extra aggro.

WoG gives you more AoE threat than SotR, plus it makes you easier to heal. It's a good choice for 5-mans.

It's tempting to throw a shield and let the mobs saunter back to you. DPS are not that patient. Go out to meet them, allowing just enough room that your AoE abilities don't break CCs. You can always walk the pack back once you pick it up.

Pursuit of Justice helps you to arrive at them mobs before the DPS does, particularly if you cast AS while moving forward. If not using CC, I will run forward and use AS pretty much as I get proximity aggro. The 2-3 seconds that DPS will give you starts when you throw your shield, not when you get to melee (at least for most DPS I encounter), so getting to melee quickly is pretty key.

DKs' Howling Blast is OP and will pull aggro because there is really not much you can do to build more threat than that in your 2-3 second window. As long as the rest of the pull is controlled, feel free to taunt off him. If he's annoying you, hand of protection is nice because it slows his attack speed, which annoys him. He's using HB for the pretty DPS numbers, so if you nerf his DPS he may figure it out and stop using HB on the pull.

inthedrops wrote:Yes, Mark. Solves MANY problems. DPS actually like it for the most part too.

I just need to reinforce this. My main is a mage, my primary alt is an ele shaman, my secondary alt is my paladin. Nothing is more frustrating than watching the first target drop, only to be unable to attack anyone else because the tank hasn't built up enough threat on any other target that I am not pulling off of him with the second "lucky" crit on a new target.

I find this especially frustrating when the tank starts complaining of low DPS or people pulling targets off of him. Hrm, maybe if you marked your targets, we could actually plan on who to attack next, instead of making us play guessing games, we'd be able to DO our dps and get the encounter done faster. That's what you want, right Mr. GoGoGO! tank? (note, generic comment, not directed towards anyone in the thread )

Koatanga wrote:It's tempting to throw a shield and let the mobs saunter back to you. DPS are not that patient. Go out to meet them, allowing just enough room that your AoE abilities don't break CCs. You can always walk the pack back once you pick it up.

Pursuit of Justice helps you to arrive at them mobs before the DPS does, particularly if you cast AS while moving forward. If not using CC, I will run forward and use AS pretty much as I get proximity aggro. The 2-3 seconds that DPS will give you starts when you throw your shield, not when you get to melee (at least for most DPS I encounter), so getting to melee quickly is pretty key.

^ This

I also like to tell folks that the way vengence currently works, if they hold off for a few seconds *after* I start smacking things, they can generally go hog wild with no worries.

BTW - I think this is made worse by the low level instances that have convinced people that the immediate ROFLAOESTOMP is a valid tactic... and wipes seldom seem to get people to learn different. Makes the BC dungeons interesting when played with the 'I outgear this place' wrath mindset.

If you stop and mark in PUGs in my realm you invariably get "gogogo!" etc. Similar if you stop and discuss tactics/CC.

WoTLK let the dps control the PUGs as fast paced, chain pulling dps races and they are proving a hard bunch to get back under control. So many tanks don't want to run PUGs anymore and there are long queues for the few tanks that still enjoy being abused by impatient PUGs.

Download a marking mod, many people use LuckyCharms2 or you can do what I do and simply remap keys F5-F12 to be Star through Skull. This makes it incredibly easy to mark out everything exactly the same. F12, F11, f10, etc are all kill targets in descending order (skull, X, square) and F5, F6, F7, etc are CC targets in ascending order (star, circle, diamond).

I know tanks get accused of being diva's, better than others...insert your name you have been called in a pug, but this is where we have to for the ease of the run and your own sanity. Mark at least skull and let the DPS know what cc target they have. When the healer is low on mana, call it out in party chat, "MANA" communication is the key. If by some grace of all thats holy you get a competent pug and your healers mana is almost always full. Speed up! Someone has to set the tone for the run, this is where a good tank can do this.

I have skull bound to Shift-W. You can hit that really fast to designatekill targets. Some time is lost once a week when somebody asks you whatmod you're using to mark things so fast and you have to explain whereraid markings are in the Key Bindings section.

If you're delaying a pull, sit down or kneel. People understand that.And if you target the healer, they probably have you targeted and will seeit; the smart ones will understand that you're paying attention to theirmana bar and will do something about it.

(The lame ones will irritably tell you to get moving, because it shouldbe obvious to you that even though they're at 15% mana they're ready togo and prefer to use their emergency cooldowns rather than drink.)

Download a marking mod, many people use LuckyCharms2 or you can do what I do and simply remap keys F5-F12 to be Star through Skull. This makes it incredibly easy to mark out everything exactly the same. F12, F11, f10, etc are all kill targets in descending order (skull, X, square) and F5, F6, F7, etc are CC targets in ascending order (star, circle, diamond).

I personally use a combination of SRTI and PugLax. For a while I tried Magic Marker but I couldn't seem to get it to automatically mark for me. I like SRTI because I can have my Vent PTT key down and still be marking with no problems, and it's just as fast as moving my hand off the mouse to hit a key that's on the other side of the keyboard.